The Avenger's Daughter
by Evangeline's Angel
Summary: Years before he became Ironman, Tony Stark met, and soon adopted Toriana, the genius daughter of a SI employee after a horrible accident. Follow them through the years. AU from Pre-IM1 to post Avengers. Possible slash later. Read and review. T to be safe.
1. Chapter 1

_**Chapter One**_

Tony Stark was having a hell of a day. He woke up late, had to rush to Stark Tower for a meeting, found a scratch on his favourite car, and to top it off, he just spilt the coffee Pepper had gotten for him all over the floor of his office as soon as he walked in. Dropping his head to his chest he made his way to his desk. Flopping back into his desk chair, he hit the button on his intercom.

"Pepper, I need someone to come and mop up my coffee," He said with a heavy sigh, "and a new coffee."

"I'll send Helena right in, Mr. Stark."

Tony began going through all of the paper work that he had let build up over the last few days with even less enthusiasm than what he usually had for paper work. A few minutes went by when a soft knock sounded on the large oak doors of his office. "It's open," Tony said without looking up from the paper he was holding.

Helena was a small woman; she barely hit five foot and was the kind of slim that would blow away with a strong wind. Her size, however, was not something you should judge her by, as she was smart as a whip and she had a sharp tongue when needed. When she pushed her way into Tony's office, she held a mop in one hand that she was using to push the wheeled bucket, and a large mug of coffee in the other.

Helena had worked for Stark Industries for four and a half years and had quickly become one of the very few who would and could deal with Tony Stark long enough to clean his office. The pair had a mutual understanding with each other, and had gotten to know each other quite well over the years; they were very comfortable together. Helena left the mop by the spill and carried the steaming mug to the man behind the desk. "Your coffee, Tony," Helena said softly as she set the cup down on a coaster.

"Thank you Helena, you are a life saver," Tony said with a cheeky smile when he spotted the coffee.

Helena let out a laugh and went back to the mop to clean the spill.

Just as Helena finished mopping up the mess the office door burst open to reveal two security guards and a small child clutching a large book. The men ignored Helena and addressed their boss: "Sir, we found this child in the staff cafeteria."

Tony had looked up when the door opened and he stared incredulously at the girl. "Wha-?"

"Toriana! Ik zei dat je voor een verblijf in de kleedkamer!" Helena said harshly in Dutch.

"Moeder, ik niet blijven, er waren teveel mensen." The girl responded. "Ze keken me."

"Ehm, Helena? Could you explain… in English?" Tony asked exasperated and confused. In all the years he had known Helena, he hadn't known she spoke another language.

"Mr. Stark, this is my daughter, Toriana. She was supposed to stay in the locker room. She was suspended from school for getting in a fight, and I couldn't find a baby sitter to watch her. I have no family." Helena began to wring her hands together, "I promise she will be no problem, she will just read. But I couldn't leave her at home. She's only six."

Tony nodded without saying anything and turned to the security officers, "Thank you boys, you can go back to work now." When the two men had left and the office door had closed once again, Tony turned back to Helena. "She can stay here so long as she is quiet."

"Thank you, Mr. Stark." Helena said with a large smile.

The girl had her mother's stature, even at age six it was obvious, but she was nearly completely opposite beyond that. Where Helena had dark hair as straight as can be, Toriana was blonde with huge ringlets hanging around her head in a halo. Helena had dark green eyes, yet Toriana had ice blue eyes. Helena had a natural tan to her skin, but her daughter had rich, creamy white skin with hardly a blemish beyond a dark purple bruise on her left cheek and a black eye.

"U verblijf heir met de heer Stark, stil te je zijn en je boek gelezen. Doe geen Moeite hem." Helena told her daughter seriously. "Goed zijn, ik zal terugkeren om vijf uur."

"Oke moeder, ik zal goed." Toriana answered with a smile. Toriana made her way to the corner of the room farthest from the desk and settled with her book.

Helena's two way radio crackled to life as she was paged to a conference room on a different floor. Once Helena had left the room, mop in tow, Tony turned back to his paper work and hunched over the desk to get it done. A few hours passed and the office was silent save for the flipping of papers, and the occasional grumble about having too much paper work from the dark haired man behind the desk. Just before noon Pepper called to ask if Tony wanted lunch and he asked for enough for two, of something that was kid appropriate. At twelve o'clock Pepper came into the office carrying a take-out bag from a burger joint not far from the Stark Building and another large stack of files. She placed her burden on the glass desk and raised her eyebrow at her boss.

"She's Helena's daughter," Tony said, but didn't elaborate as he tucked the file he was working on away and pulled the paper bag towards himself. Pepper raised her eyebrow farther before left the room. "Toriana, come get some food."

The small girl looked up from her book and smiled. "Thank you De heer Stark." Toriana made her way to the desk and climbed into the chair opposite from Tony. Tony passed the girl a burger and a small fry along with a small carton of chocolate milk.

The pair ate in silence for a few minutes before Tony asked the question he was dying to ask since he spotted the bruises on the girl. "What happened to you?"

Toriana's eyes widened slightly before she blushed. "I got into a fight with one of the girls in my class. They don't like me because I am six, and they are ten. I was ignoring them, but they said that I was a freak and that's why my vader left me and moeder. I hit her, but she's bigger than me."

Tony sat stunned for a moment. He had expected it to have been the result of a fight with another child - her mother had said that Toriana was suspended. What he didn't expect was for her to be in a grade so much higher than what she should have been. Helena and Tony rarely spoke of her daughter, despite him knowing of her. He also knew that her father wasn't in the picture.

"Well, she shouldn't have said that. You aren't a freak, just smart. Like me. I skipped grades too." Toriana smiled at Tony and the pair lapsed back into silence as they continued to eat their meals. "What language are you and your mom speaking?"

"Dutch. Oma and Opa came from the Netherlands, so it was my moeder's and my first language. I learned English while learning Dutch, she learned English in school." Toriana explained.

Tony nodded and the pair finished their lunches and went back to their previous activities until the day had passed and Helena appeared back in the office.

"I hope she wasn't a bother, Tony."

"Not at all," Tony waved his hand dismissively. "She read, we ate lunch, and then she read."

Helena nodded and soon the mother and daughter duo were on their way home.

Toriana spent the next two days of her suspension in Tony's office with Toriana reading and doing her school work while Tony took care of paperwork for Stark Industries. Over the next few months, Tony and Helena added Toriana to the list of topics they regularly spoke about when they met in the building and soon enough, Tony went from "De heer Stark" to "Oom Tony" to Toriana.

**A/N: Hey all, a bit of background info, this takes place pre-Iron Man (movie one). Toriana's father is important to the story, and brownie points to anyone who can figure it out. Her name is a dead giveaway. The first chapter is 1,387 words long, minus the authors' notes. Reviews are not only loved, they are needed. I can't know if you like the story if you don't tell me. Also, the more reviews I get, the faster I'll update. Side note, I'm not sure if this will be slash in the future, it might, we just have to wait and see. **

**I put this in the Avengers category because the Avengers are going to have a large role in the story, it will just take a bit to get there. **

**Translations: ****I will put translations at the end of any chapter that needs them. However words that are used over and over, will only be translated in the first chapter they are used. Also, I don't speak Dutch, so I'm using a translator, if things are wrong, I apologies. **

**Ik xei dat je voor een verblijf in de kleedkamer! - I told you to stay in the locker room!**

**Ze keken me. – They were watching me.**

**Moeder, ik niet blijven, er waren teveel mensen. – Mother, I cannot stay, there were too many people. **

**U verblijif heir met de heer Stark, stil te je zijn en je boek gelezen. Doe geen moeite hem. – You will stay here with Mr. Stark, be quiet and read your book. Don't bother him. **

**Goed zijn, ik zal terugkeren om vijf uur. – Be good, I will be back at five.**

**Oke moeder, ik xal goed. – Alright mother, I'll be good. **

**De heer Stark – Mr. Stark. **

**Vader – Father. **

**Oom – Uncle. **

**Oma – Grandmother.**

**Opa – Grandfather.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything except Toriana and her mother and whatever else you do not recognize from the movies. I am making no money from this, it is only for pleasure. **


	2. Chapter 2

_**Chapter Two**_

Two years passed with relative ease for Tony and the rest of Stark Industries. Helena had become a very close friend to Tony, and he enjoyed being a surrogate uncle to Toriana, spoiling her any chance he got. Tony had paid for Toriana to go to a private school that was better suited to her advancing needs as well as helping keep her out of trouble. She had jumped grades again, and at age eight, she was starting on high school level classes. The little girl often spent hours in Tony's office - the man in question had even added a desk for the girl to work at - either reading, or asking the elder genius for help with whatever it was that she was working on at the time.

Tuesday, March fifth began as any other day began at Stark Tower. Tony was in his office with Toriana, as she didn't have school that day, so the pair were doing as they did; Tony worked on his paper work while Toriana read. Both silent save for the occasional question from Toriana, or grumble from Tony. The pair worked for a few hours before breaking for lunch.

"How are your classes going?" Tony asked before stuffing a French fry into his mouth.

"Well, I think," Toriana answered, "I really enjoy biology."

Tony pulled a face. "But there are squishy things in biology."

Toriana laughed brightly. "Yes, but it's still cool to see how it all works."

The pair continued to chat about soft topics such as her other classes, projects Tony was working on, and what Toriana wanted to get her mother for her birthday throughout their lunch. It wasn't until an hour after the two settled back into their work when chaos reigned.

Alarms started to ring from every corner of the building and a voice over the PA system was speaking in a robotic voice for everyone to evacuate the building. Tony grabbed his keys and wallet from the desk drawer, and picked up his messenger bag after stuffing the more important files into it along with the backup memory for his computer into it. Toriana shoved her books into her backpack before swinging it up onto her shoulders. Tony grabbed Toriana's hand before he pushed into the hallway outside his office.

The hall was in pandemonium as the two made their way outside the building. People were running and pushing and shoving to get out as no reason was given for the evacuation, and no one had been informed of a drill that day. The stairs were a tight fit as no one wished to risk the elevators in case it was a fire somewhere that they were being evacuated for. Tony came to a halt outside the building beside Pepper and the department heads and watched as firefighters and police officers poured into the building. Tony turned to Pepper, "What happened?"

Pepper glanced at him, then at Toriana, and then at the building. "There was an accident in one of the chem labs. A chemical agent was spilt and a few people were affected. The agent has the potential to become airborne, so the building was put on lock down, and everyone from the floors above and below were evacuated. Right now, the rescue personnel are going to evacuate the people on the same floor as the lab, leaving the lab sealed. Then after everyone else is out, the lab will be evacuated."

"What floor was it on, which lab?" Tony asked, seeing as it's his building and his company, he figured he should get to know the who, what, when, where and why.

"Seventh floor, Lab 14." Pepper said. Tony let out a low whistle; Lab 14 was working on some heavy duty solvents, and some of the things they had in there were poisonous on many levels. "We have a list of everyone on the floor, but there is no way to tell who is where on the floor beyond the major players," Pepper glanced once again at Toriana who was focused on the activity at the foot of the building.

Tony followed the movement and shook his head. "No."

Pepper closed her eyes and nodded, "She's somewhere on that floor."

"But Hel-she works the upper three floors, not seventh! What was she doing there?!" Tony nearly shouted, catching the attention of many people around including Toriana.

"Oom Tony? Is everything alright?" Toriana asked when she saw the anger and worry etched across the man's face.

"Everything will be fine," He said, but he didn't sound convincing in the least. Tony paced up and down the strip of grass that the higher ups had gathered on. After a few moments he had calmed enough and came back to stand beside Pepper in a position where he could watch both Toriana and the entrance to the building.

Slowly firefighters and police officers began leading people out into a make-shift clinic to be checked before being sent home, or to a hospital depending on their needs. Tony watched, scanning every face looking for his friend and with every person who passed that wasn't Helena, the tenser he became. By the time an hour had passed the seventh floor, minus Lab 14, had been evacuated and there was still no sign of Helena.

Frustrated, Tony pulled out his phone and began tapping the screen: "JARVIS, bring up the security footage for the seventh floor. Lab 14."

"Right away, sir," The computer responded. A few moments later a live feed from the building's security cameras was displayed on Tony's phone's screen. He could see the main lab and three people; two men whom both worked in the lab, and a very familiar brunette. Tony cursed loudly and tossed his phone to Pepper when she looked at him curiously.

"Oh no," Pepper breathed. Her free hand raised and her finger tips rested lightly on her lips as she stared at the woman's image on the screen.

The two adults gazes' drifted simultaneously to the eight year old who had lost interest in what was happening around her and had pulled a book from her bag.

Another few hours had passed and Toriana had fallen asleep on the grass, book in hand, while Tony and Pepper kept a near silent vigil over both her, and her mother. When Helena was brought from the building she was already on a gurney and was immediately loaded into an ambulance that darted off as soon as the door were closed. Tony stared after the ambulance long after it was out of site before he whispered, "What do I do now?"

**A/N: Hey all, how did you like chapter two? Has anyone figured out who Toriana's father is? This chapter is 1,106 words long, so a little bit shorter than the first, but still decent. **** Reviews are not only loved, they are needed. I can't know if you like the story if you don't tell me. Also, the more reviews I get, the faster I'll update. No new Dutch this chapter, so no new Translations. So without further rambling, please review, I love feedback. **

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything except Toriana and her mother and whatever else you do not recognize from the movies. I am making no money from this, it is only for pleasure.**


	3. Chapter 3

_**Chapter Three**_

Tony took Toriana and left Pepper in charge of the cleanup at Stark Tower. The man and child made their way silently to the hospital that Helena had been rushed to. Toriana held herself tightly in the back seat of the silver sports car as it whipped through the streets. Tony's hands clenched on the steering wheel his eyes unwavering from the road before him. The silver car streaked around the final corner before screeching to a halt outside the hospital.

Tony pulled himself from the car and opened the back door. He wore a pair of dark sun glasses, but if he hadn't, everyone would have been able to see the anguish in his eyes. Carefully, Tony pulled Toriana from the car and wrapped her in his arms to carry her into the hospital. His pace was steady, and what could be seen of his face was devoid of any emotion or expression. Toriana kept her arms wrapped around Tony's neck and her face buried in the crook while they walked into the hospital.

The main entrance to the hospital was nearly void of life, only a few off duty nurses and volunteers milled around save for the lone woman behind the desk at the end of the room. Tony made his way to the desk that sat beneath a sign which announced reception. An elderly man was already at the desk speaking with the nurse behind it about where his wife was after she had been brought in by an ambulance because of a sudden collapse. The woman tapped away on her computer and gave the man directions to the emergency ward on the floor below.

"May I help you sir?" The nurse asked when Tony stepped up to the edge of the desk.

"Yes, I'm looking for Helena Meijer, that's M-E-I-J-E-R." Tony spelt the slightly unusual surname. The nurse once gain began typing on her computer.

It took a moment for the nurse to look up again, but when she did she asked, "May I ask your relationship to the patient?"

"She's a good friend, along with an employee. This is her daughter," Tony answered, becoming more worried by the second. The nurse typed for a few more minutes before wheeling her chair to the other end of the desk to make a phone call. The call itself didn't take long, but the woman didn't immediately return to the other end of the desk, instead she made a second call.

"Sir? Ms. Meijer is in surgery at the moment. A volunteer will be here in a moment to bring you to the Operating Room's private waiting room." The nurse told him when she returned to her original spot.

Tony nodded and took a few steps away to wait for the volunteer and clear the way for anyone else looking for directions.

"Oom Tony?" Toriana's small voice sounded from just below his ear. "Is moeder going to be alright?"

Tony was silent for a moment before sighing. "I don't know, Tori. But the doctors are doing everything they can to make her better."

A few minutes passed when a scrawny teenage boy came around a corner wearing a red vest that read 'Hospital Volunteer' on the right side. The teen stopped just before Tony. "Are you here for Ms. Meijer?"

Tony nodded and the volunteer led him through the halls of the hospital. The OR's waiting room was on the third floor, just down the hall from the OR's themselves. There were three waiting rooms: one for general use, anyone who was booked in for surgery, or waiting for someone could wait there; the second was the Family Waiting Room, or so the sign announced, obviously for family of someone whom was undergoing surgery. The third and final room was marked 'Private' and was usually unused unless two surgeries were in progress at once and both had large amounts of family waiting. This is where the volunteer left Tony and Toriana with a muttered, "as soon as the doctor knows anything, someone will be by to tell you."

Hours passed, and Toriana had once again fallen asleep, though this time she was curled up on Tony's lap, wrapped up in a combination of a blanket that a nurse had brought in, and Tony's arms. Tony's chauffeur, Happy, had come and brought the pair a meal which Pepper had ordered, but it was left uneaten and unopened.

The initial spill had occurred at twelve minutes after 12 in the afternoon; Helena was rushed to the hospital at 2:53. Surgery to attempt to remove burned flesh and reopen her airways began at 3:18 and the doctor emerged from the operating room at 11:56. Dr. James Dalton was the Head Surgeon at the largest hospital in the area and he had done countless surgeries, many of which had worse injuries to begin and the patient survived, but Tony knew from the way the doctor carried himself, and watched the floor, that this was not going to be a welcome announcement. When the man reached the doorway to the private family waiting room where Tony sat, he slowly brought his head up and asked, "Family of Helena Meijer?"

Tony stood and carefully set Toriana down on a large cushioned bench. The girl was still sleeping peacefully and simply curled herself tighter under her blanket. Tony walked to the door and nodded his head, motioning to speak outside. The men exited the room and closed the door silently. Tony took his stance beside the door at an angle from which he could still see Toriana sleeping, should she wake.

The doctor held out his hand. "Doctor James Dalton."

Tony shook the other man's hand firmly. "Tony Stark. How's Helena?"

Dalton looked to the floor. "We did all that we could, but the burns to her trachea were more than anticipated. She lost a lot of blood when we attempted to remove the burned tissues from her body, along with those in her throat. Her heart stopped twice, the first time we were able to restart it easily, the second time we tried for a long time before we were forced to call it." The doctor looked up to Tony's face in time to see it crumple. Tony wasn't looking at the doctor though, he was looking through the slim window at Toriana who slept on unaware that her life had just changed irrevocably.

**A/N: Sorry for the delay, the last few days just got a bit away from me, and I just got the announcement that I'm moving in with my sister on Saturday, so I've been caught up in cleaning, sorting and packing. Either way, this chapter is 1,067 words long, and it took a hell of a lot to get it there, as it sat at about 830 for a long time before I squeezed those last two hundred in there. **

**Review wise we had one right answer, and one partially right answer. Tony is technically going to be Toriana's dad, but he isn't her father. I'd love to hear more opinions, and ideas, so drop me a line, if not a review, send me a message. **

**I think I've got a fairly good idea as to where this is going, so I can easily say that it will take up through both Iron Man movies, touch the Captain America movie, and then follow right through and a bit passed the Avenger's movie. **

**There is also no new Dutch in this chapter, so no new translations.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything except Toriana and her mother and whatever else you do not recognize from the movies. I am making no money from this, it is only for pleasure.**


	4. Chapter 4

_**Chapter Four**_

Fifteen minutes of speaking with the doctor about specifics and making mental notes to make arrangements for Helena's funeral and burial later, Tony returned to the waiting room were Toriana slept on, oblivious to the world around her. The dark haired man wasn't sure how long he stood just inside the door before he moved to the seat he had been waiting in and slumping into it. He well and truly didn't know how to go about waking Toriana to tell her that her mother, the only parent she had ever known, wasn't coming home again. How did you tell an eight year old that? Hell, how did you tell anyone that?

It was a while later before Tony silently made his way to the bench and knelt down beside Toriana's head and softly brushed the hair on her face behind her ear. He had always been a bit fascinated with Toriana's long blonde curls. They were so unlike her mother's pin-straight black hair that he just couldn't understand how she happened. And that was before you took note of her eyes. Green is the dominate gene, so her blue eyes should have been impossible. Whoever her father was, he sure had strong genes to have obliterated Helena's so well.

Minutes ticked past without consequence as Tony sat running his fingers through his own hair, and her's while Toriana slept on. The nearly thirty year old man didn't know how long he sat there, watching the little girl he had come to love sleep before she shifted slightly and woke. Bleary blue eyes stared unfocused at Tony as the girl sat up and stretched before running her fingers through her sleep mused hair. It took a minute for Toriana to wake enough for her eyes to focus properly on Tony enough to truly see him.

His eyes were rimmed red and bloodshot, his hair a mess from running his fingers through it a time or two too many, and his mouth was set into a grim line that left no room to doubt the news he had to tell her.

Neither spoke, but no words were needed; both knew without speaking what had transpired. Moments went by before Tony's eyes slid closed and his face dipped to the floor, unable to continue to look into the dull blue eyes that were normally so bright. Toriana's slight frame began to quake in her spot. Her body tensing and releasing in such quick succession that she shook the entire bench beneath her with each movement, despite it being bolted to the floor. Suddenly Toriana froze, she didn't breathe or blink or anything for a heartbeat.

Tony, who had reopened his eyes and looked at the girl who was trembling fiercely, sucked in a large breath preparing himself to be deafened by Toriana's cry, or thrown off balance by her weight slamming into him in his prone position. Neither happened, but nothing would have prepared him for what did happen.

As Toriana relaxed and let out a loud pained cry, small bolts of electricity arched across the air around her, hitting the sockets in the walls and the lights overhead. The power crackled and sparked in the air around Toriana for no more than a breath before it faded into nothing as her cry died on her lips. The whole hospital seemed to be still for a moment before everything went dark. No lights in the hall ways, or beeping of heart monitors down the hall.

Stunned into a state of immobility, Tony stared at the little girl until the emergency generator kicked in and Toriana began to sob in earnest. Shaking himself, Tony reached forwards and gathered the girl into his arms and began rocking her while murmuring soothing words into her hair. He knew for a fact that nothing he could say to do would truly make her feel any better in that moment, but just being there would do at least a bit, so he held her in silence. Toriana clung to Tony as if her life depended on it as she sobbed uncontrollably into his normally pristine designer white shirt, soaking the material with the tears that leaked from her eyes.

Tears leaked their way from Tony's clenched eyes and dropped onto Toriana's blonde head as he held her. Slowly her sobs quieted and turned to sniffles before Toriana fell into a fitful sleep.

With a heavy sigh Tony carefully arranged the sleeping girl back onto the cushioned bench and stood. Tony began gathering the few things the pair had with them and prepared to leave the hospital. Once he was ready, he carefully picked up Toriana from the bench and arranged her to rest her head on his shoulder so she could continue to sleep on the walk to the car and, if he was lucky, the ride home as well.

Just as Tony turned to the door just as it opened to reveal a slightly plump middle aged woman with poorly dyed auburn hair and an ill-fitting, clearly cheap navy blue pant suit. The woman stood in the door way holding a clip board and a pen, with a purse strung over her shoulder, and an I.D. badge hanging around her neck proclaiming her to be Margaret Adler, a social worker from Child Protective Services. Tony stared at the woman unable to speak, how the hell could they be here already? Helena couldn't have been _gone _for an hour, yet here she was, with a Holier-Than-Thou smirk on her face as she stared right back at Tony.

"Mister Stark?" The woman asked, but she didn't wait for the aforementioned man to respond before announcing, "My name is Margaret Adler, I'm the worker assigned to Toriana Meijer's case. I'm here to take her to a girls home until we can find her a foster home. If you could be so kind as to wake her, we will be out of your hair and you won't have to worry about this anymore."

**Author's Note:** **Sorry about how long it took to get this chapter to you guys, it's just been a bit of a trip the last little while. But good news is that I did manage to convince my friend Trevor to Beta the story for me, so all of the previous chapters have been edited and reposted. From now on, after each chapter is written, I'll be sending it to him to be edited before it is posted, but it should take too long for that to happen, he's a good editor and writer in his own right. **

**This chapter is 1,003 words long, so just a touch shorter than the rest, but not by much. I hope you enjoy this chapter, and let me know with a review what you think.**

**No new Dutch again, so no new translations. **

**Disclaimer: I am not making any money from this, I write only for my own pleasure. **


	5. Chapter 5

_**Chapter Five**_

The weeks following that day both sped by and dragged on forever to Tony; he had so much to do, and seemingly no time to do any of it. He had his lawyers working night and day to make sure he could keep Toriana in his care, seeing as he technically kidnapped her from the hospital. Pepper and Tony had been running around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to simultaneously keep Stark Industries running after the incident, as well as sort out all of Helena's affairs. and keep Toriana from completely shutting down.

Tony hadn't said a word to anyone about what he witnessed at the hospital. He was doing everything in his power to keep Toriana, which included not doing or saying anything to anyone that could jeopardize his chances. Making himself sound crazy would top that list, as he was sure that no one would believe, let alone understand what had happened.

Toriana herself hadn't said much of anything since that day. She only spoke if spoken to, and only if that was completely necessary, and when it was, she would say the bare minimum to get her point across before falling silent once again. She moved around the house like a wraith, not truly conscious of the world around her. She would even stare at people when they spoke to her as if they were speaking some foreign language that she had never even heard of before.

This worried Tony far more then he let himself show. Toriana had never been one to sit by and take what happened, she always would fight back and fight with everything she had, so to see her with so little fight in her scared Tony.

And thus lead to Tony, Pepper and Toriana standing in Helena and Toriana's apartment home exactly three weeks to the day of the incident. The apartment was clearly the home of someone who liked things clean. There was a slight layer of dust around the space, but that was only from the lack of life in the apartment over the previous weeks, than any other cause. Everything seemed to have, and be in, its place as Tony looked around.

Tony and Pepper decided that they would come and pack up anything major that Toriana may need or want in the near future and take it with them back to the house. Everything else was going to be packed later that day by professionals and stored away for whenever Toriana asked for it.

"Well," Pepper clapped her hands together, "let's get to work. We only have a few hours before the movers get here to pack up the rest."

And with that, the trio set to work. Toriana disappeared into her own room with a few boxes and began packing her books, what few toys she had, and whatever else caught her attention. Pepper began on the living room, packing up photo albums, and pictures from the wall and mantelpiece. Tony ducked into Helena's bedroom and began pulling her personal items from her nightstand drawers, and the boxes from the top of her closet.

They had been working for an hour maybe, when Tony reached for a box on the top shelf in the closet only for it to topple and dump its contents on his head. Thankfully, Tony was only rained on by papers and small knickknacks that looked to have not seen the light of day in years. The large book thumped to the ground beside him without touching him. Pulling the box with him, he knelt and began to repack the box without much thought. That is until he came across a small picture of Helena and a rather large man who had his arms wrapped around what was clearly Helena's very pregnant stomach.

Flipping the photograph over, he found Helena's neat scrawl declaring _'Helena and Thor, eight months pregnant'_. Shocked, Tony stared at the writing without really seeing it for a few minutes. He had found a picture of Toriana's father! Going back through the things he had already placed back in the box he found more pictures showing Helena in varying stages of pregnancy, as well as family portraits with a tiny baby Toriana. The papers were a mixture of love notes between Helena and this Thor fellow, Toriana's birth certificate that named Thor Odinsson the father, drawings of fantastic creatures that surely never existed, and tickets to various attractions and films. Tony flipped through them slowly as he once again replaced them in the box, he was sure that these would be things that Toriana would want when she was ready.

When everything else was back in the box, Tony picked up the book from the floor and read the title: _Norse Legends and Myths Retold by Ingrith Bjer. _Confusion clouded Tony's features as he opened the cover of the book to the first page in which he found a letter addressed to Helena and a small note written on the inside of the front cover of the book.

The inscription read, '_To my Helena, a book I found of a little of my history here on Midgard. I hope you look on this with the same fondness I look at you with. Thor.' _It was then that Tony noticed the markers on the pages sticking out of the top of the book. He flipped to the first one to see the story of the All Father, Odin; the next was about his son, Thor, and then various other myths that all centered around one God or another from a place called Asgard.

Flipping the book closed, Tony opened the letter.

_Dear Helena,_

_This is something that I should be telling you in person, and not in a letter, but I find myself without the courage to face you with these tidings. _

_It seems that since coming to Midgard again, and meeting you, I have been remiss in my duties in Asgard and the All Father is not happy with me. I have been here nearly constantly for almost three years. Toriana, our beautiful little girl, has shown no signs that she has inherited any power of the Gods, and thus I cannot convince my father to allow me to remain here. _

_I've told you time and time again that Asgardian children exhibit any power they possess nearly from birth, and yet at eight months, Toriana has shown nothing. This leaves me with the feeling that she has not a power. And while that does not make me feel any different towards her, it does mean that I cannot stay any longer. _

_My love for you shall never fade, and I shall have Heimdall watch over you and Toriana always._

_Be safe, and know that I shall always be but a bridge away._

_Thor, Son of Odin._

* * *

**__AN: So, here we are, chapter five. And answers at that. Now, you should have gotten this chapter Saturday morning, when I got it back from my friend who is kind enough to Beta it for me, but between a complete lack of sleep, (about 60 hours awake) and work, I blanked on posting. **

**But you have it now. This chapter is 1,140 words long not counting the authors note. **

**I hope you enjoy this chapter, and as an extra treat, you guys get chapter six very soon. It's already written and edited so it's just waiting to be posted. **

**Have a great day, and lemme know what you think. **


	6. Chapter 6

_**Chapter Six**_

Reeling, Tony shoved the book into the box and closed it. There was no way that was true! The Norse god surely didn't exist, let alone come and father a child only to leave again! No! Tony shook himself and picked up the smaller box. Stuffing it into a larger box on the bed that held various other things he had picked up from the room, he sealed that box as well. Tony made quick work of filling a third box in Helena's bedroom before he brought them out to the front door and stacked them there.

Pepper, who had been in the kitchen packing up what had once been stuck to the fridge with magnets, looked over at her boss, "Are you alright, Tony?" she asked. He seemed pale and shaken to his longtime employee.

"What?" He asked, surprised, when she spoke, "oh, yeah. I'm fine. How are things in here?"

"Good. I think I'm just about done with the important things. Everything else can either be donated or go into storage," Pepper explained with a gesture to a stack of sealed boxes and a single open one just to her right.

Tony nodded his head and turned to face the small hall that led to the bedrooms and bathroom of the small apartment. "Has she come out at all since we've been here?" His voice was soft, as if asking loudly might bring her bounding from the room.

"No, but I checked on her a while ago. She was packing her books." Pepper answered as she went back to her task. "Why don't you go see what she is up to?"

Tony nodded, despite knowing that Pepper wasn't looking at him, and made his way to the second bedroom of the apartment. The small hallway was adorned with nails where pictures had once hung. The pale cream walls showed no signs of wear, as if the paint was fresh. Tony lightly knocked on the door at the end of the small hall before pushing his way into the light purple bedroom.

Toriana had one box pushed against the wall beside the door, full of books, and she stood placing the last few from her shelf into a second box. A third box stood open with clothes and toys stuffed haphazardly into it, sticking out awkwardly. Tony's lips lifted in a half smile, even as out of whack as she had been, she still treated her books with the utmost care.

"How's it going in here?" Tony asked lightly.

"Fine. Nearly done now." Toriana responded without looking up from the books.

"Do you need a hand?" Tony asked. He knew he was pushing his luck, after getting a verbal answer to his first question, but he couldn't help himself. Toriana shook her head and turned back to her shelf to grab the last book, a copy of the same book Tony had found tucked into the box in Helena's bedroom. Tony sucked in a sharp breath as he stared at the well-worn cover. The book clearly had been read countless times, probably as bedtime stories for the girl holding the book.

Tony had to be going around the bend, he knew he must. First he was seeing things at the hospital, and now he was considering the possibility that the Norse God of Thunder existed and fathered the child before him. He was definitely going crazy, there was no other explanation. Pulling himself from the chaos inside his own head, Tony picked up the box by the door and made his way back to the front door.

The last of the packing took very little time for the trio, and they were soon on their way back to Tony's with the stack of boxes in a second car with Happy behind the wheel. A quick ride had them at home and soon enough the boxes were neatly stacked in the spare bedroom in Tony's home.

Every box but one, that is.

Tony had smuggled the box that held Helena's hidden box into his own room. He refused to admit to himself that he was still stuck on the possibility that the man in the photographs, the man that was clearly Toriana's father was Thor, Norse God of Thunder, son of Odin, the All Father. There was no way he would admit that, no. He took the box so that Toriana wouldn't find that her father had lied to her mother when he left. He nodded to himself shakily, _yeah, that's it,_ he thought.

And yet, come midnight that night Tony found himself with the numerous screens in his room all on various sites depicting the myths and legends revolving around Thor and the rest of the Norse gods. He had cracked open the box and had ordered everything as chronologically as he could, going by the few dates on items and the look of the papers.

The dates stretched from early 1988 to the date on the last letter "Thor" wrote, being September 12th 1991, just a few weeks more than eight months from Toriana's birth date of February 3rd 1991. He knew them all by heart, having read them so many times, but he still kept looking for something he may have missed to definitively prove one way or the other whether this is lunacy or not.

Months passed. Tony was granted custody of Toriana, Stark Industries pulled out of the media backlash of the incident, and after weeks of non-stop research, Tony had finally put Toriana's father out of his head. Toriana had opened back up again, and was well on the way to being the same girl she was, or as close as she could get, after such a changing experience. Life had found a rhythm again, and it was easy for the man and child to go with the flow for as long as they could.

Obadiah Stane had taken up more of the responsibilities of running the company leaving Tony more time to spend with Toriana, quickly becoming the dad she never had. The pair did projects together; everything from seeing how long it took for green beads to grow, to tinkering with electronics.

Things were seemingly going swimmingly for everyone involved. That is, until the day that Toriana came home from school in a foul mood after some of the other kids in her class began picking on her for being an orphan.

Toriana stomped into the house, bypassing Tony in the kitchen and disappearing up the stairs and into her bedroom. Happy stood near the door with Toriana's book bag, which had been left in the back seat of the car. The men looked at each other silently for a moment before Tony looked to the stairs and Happy set the bag down.

"She's been like that since I picked her up," Happy explained, "Something must have happened at school."

Tony nodded and made his way up the stairs after dismissing Happy for the night. Upon reaching the second floor of the house, Tony could hear the sounds of Toriana moving around in her room, seemingly throwing things. Tony made his way faster; not so much that he worried about having to replace anything in the room, but about Toriana hurting herself on something she broke.

Throwing open the door, Tony shoved his way into the room only to freeze completely. Toriana wasn't throwing anything. At least, not with her hands. She stood trembling in the center of her room, arms wrapped tightly around her torso as a fierce wind whipped around her. Sparks of electricity snapped and crackled around the room, a tiny electrical storm was contained in the room.

Without concern for his own safety, Tony threw himself into the miniature storm and wrapped himself around his adopted daughter. In his mind, better he be hurt then her.

It took hours to fully calm Toriana enough to get the story of what had happened out of the girl, though the sudden contact with the man had shocked her out of conducting the storm.

From then on, Tony knew he wasn't crazy, and neither was Helena nor Toriana's father. It was all true, it had to be. There was no way this was a fluke like he had convinced himself what he saw at the hospital was.

**AN: Hey everyone, early chapter for you guys. I wasn't planning on posting this for another few days, but as I have Chapter Seven already with my Beta, I'm going to give this one to you now. Though that may be also because I really don't like November 22, as a day, and could use your kind words. So, if ever there was a day I'd beg for reviews it would be this one. **

**This chapter is 1,386 words long and that is a bit longer then we've been having. Next chapter is even longer. **

**So again, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, lemme know what I did right, or wrong. **


	7. Chapter 7

_**Chapter Seven**_

The next years were a jumble of events: some small, some large, but each one with merit. Toriana had learned to control her power, and Tony had told her the identity of her father. Tony had spent an extreme amount of time researching anything and everything about Norse gods around his already busy schedule.

Toriana had graduated from High school young, two whole years younger than Tony himself, at the tender age of twelve. She had attended University, at both MIT and Columbia, studying Biology and Chemistry as majors, Engineering and European History as minors. She began researching at Columbia University upon receiving her Doctorates in Biology and Chemistry.

Though, her interest in the field of study was something unexpected, most thought she would follow in Tony's footsteps and attend MIT alone, be an inventor , and one day take over Stark Industries, and she had agreed. That is until she stumbled across a very old box in Tony's New York penthouse not too long after he adopted her.

The penthouse had been the same one that Tony had been raised in and as such, little had been changed over the years beyond upgrading. Tony had even gone so far as to refuse to throw away any of his parents' things, just storing them in boxes.

Now, the box that Toriana found wasn't one of the boxes that Tony had packed, or hired someone to pack, but a box that Howard Stark had packed many years before. It was in that box that Toriana found her inspiration. In the box were notes, lots of notes all on one subject: a serum. This serum was both famous and obscure. Nearly everyone had heard of what the serum did back in the forties during World War Two, but not many actually knew about the serum itself. Toriana had become engrossed in the possibilities of the serum, even more so when she heard of what had happened to some scientists, like Doctor Bruce Banner, when they attempted to recreate it.

In time, that had taken a back seat to her other studies and her dissertations, and soon enough, it was all but forgotten. Between classes, and personal research - along with her occasional tinkering with Tony - Toriana's days were busy. She spent time working on research for cancer, and other diseases, along with more dangerous things like working with Anthrax and its antidotes.

By seventeen, Toriana already had her name on several studies and she had published a few articles for science magazines. She was quite wrapped up in her own life.

Tony spent his time heading Stark Industries in its many endeavours while mainly a weapons manufacturer, Stark Industries also worked in the medical field, along with other smaller projects at any given time. Tony created many weapons on his own and designed JARVIS, an Artificial Intelligence that he had installed in his home.

Tony spent the majority of his time in Malibu, and Toriana in New York, but the pair always seemed to spend copious amounts of time together despite their individual obligations. Tony and Toriana's life had become quite routine when Tony was asked to go overseas to demonstrate the Jericho missile.

Tony had been in Las Vegas to accept an award, or he was supposed to be accepting an award; he had instead decided to go to the casino. After Rhodes tracked him down and gave him his award, he was off home with another fling which wasn't anything new to him.

After a quick call to Toriana, Tony was off on his private jet to the other side of the world. A quick convoy brought the man to what was clearly the Middle-of-Nowhere to show off the missile.

"Is it better to be feared or respected?" Tony started his speech, "I say, is it too much to ask for both? With that in mind, I humbly present the crown jewel of Stark Industries' Freedom line. It is the first missile to incorporate our proprietary repulser technology." He paused for a breath and shoved his hands in his pockets. "_They_ say, the best weapon is the one you never have to fire. I respectfully disagree. I prefer the weapon you only have to fire once. That's how Dad did it, that's how America does it, and it's worked out pretty well so far." Tony scanned the assembled Military personnel who were gathered, most were watching and listening, but a few seemed to be day dreaming. "Find an excuse to let one of these off the chain, and I personally guarantee you the bad guys won't even want to come out of their caves." Tony waved his arm at the missile somewhat dismissively. "For your consideration, the Jericho."

Tony raised his arms as the missiles hit the earth and closed his eyes behind his glasses. Seconds later the dust and wind from the blast whipped through and knocked him forwards two steps before he could regain his footing. Less than an hour later, Tony found himself once again in the convoy, though this time going in the opposite direction. He sat joking with the young soldiers in the Humvee thinking about blowing Obadiah off for an extra day, and stopping in New York for a visit with Toriana, when the unthinkable happened: Tony's transport was bombed, and after stumbling from the vehicle, Tony came face to face with one of his own weapons.

Tony didn't know anything after that.

Two hours later, on the other side of the world, Pepper stood with tears pooled in her eyes outside the Starks' penthouse. She had gotten the call about Tony's disappearance a few hours ago and got herself on the first available flight to New York. She knew she couldn't let Toriana find out over the phone or on the news. With a deep breath, Pepper let herself into the apartment with the spare key she carried. Placing her purse on the low table by the door, she left her overnight bag underneath it and went in search of the younger woman.

Toriana was in her lab despite the late hour. She was working away at one project or another, a project that if you asked her later what it was, she wouldn't be able to tell you.

"Miss Stark, Ms. Potts is in the kitchen looking for you." JARVIS' programmed English accented voice sounded over the speaker system set up throughout the apartment.

"Do you know why, JARVIS?" Toriana asked with a huff as she glanced around the lab. As far as she knew, there was nothing of note happening then or any time soon for that matter.

"No, Miss. Shall I ask her?"

"No, JARVIS, just let her know I'll be right there." She answered while standing from her stool and hunched position over her work. "And tell her not to come to the lab."

"Of course, Miss." JARVIS consented and the lab fell silent once again. Unlike her father, Toriana worked better in the quiet than with music or speaking, so more often than not, she shut herself in a lab with nothing more than her work.

After vigorously scrubbing her hands and arms in the lab sink, Toriana ducked from the room and made her way to the kitchen where she could smell a light chocolate-y odour coming from. Pepper stood over the stove grating a block of chocolate into a steaming pot of milk, obviously making hot chocolate. Toriana raised her eyebrows at the woman dressed in a pencil skirt and blouse who was going to town on the chocolate.

"Uh, Pepper?" Toriana cleared her throat softly pulling Pepper's attention away from the slightly melted half gone chocolate. "Why are you here-" Toriana paused and glanced at the pot, "making hot chocolate?"

"After we have a drink we can talk, okay?" Pepper didn't wait for a reply before taking up a whisk and turning from the girl.

Shocked, Toriana sat silently until Pepper set a steaming mug of chocolate in front of her. Mug in hand, Tori turned to the woman who sat on the second seat at the small dinette chair in the kitchen. Pepper was clearly worked up about something. She looked to have wiped all her make-up off, and her hair was kinked as if it had been in a high pony tail all day only to be tugged out without brushing it. It was then, when she was studying the tall redhead, that Toriana noticed that her shirt was untucked, though clearly it was styled to be tucked in, and there was a small but noticeable smudge of something black on the collar of the shirt. Almost like Pepper had wiped her mascara off her eyes and then tried to straighten her shirt.

"Pep-" Toriana once again tried to start a conversation only to be cut off.

"Your father is missing."

* * *

**AN: Hey guys, sorry for the delay in this chapter, I wanted to write chapter eight before I put this up, but I'm really struggling to get that one done, so I'm going go give this to you anyway, with no guarantee about when the next one will be up. This chapter is 1,181 words long, which is longer then any of the other chapters, and it happened quite easily. Which only serves to make my frustration worse with this next chapter. Either way, I shall sleep on it and attempt to finish eight tomorrow so you don't have to wait as long next time.**

**I hope you enjoy this chapter, lemme know what you think. **


	8. Chapter 8

**AN: Hey all. I'm back. **

**I could sit her and fill you in on all the crap that's been going down, and how when I tried to write last month, right as I was getting into the swing of things I was derailed by a death in the family, loosing my job and the death of a pet in quick succession, but it wouldn't be right of me. You guys have been waiting far longer than just January, so these excuses have no standing. So all you really get is writers block because that is all it was between the last chapter and January. **

**Enough of that though, I have chapter Nine written, you guys get that in a few days, to give me time to at least finish chapter Ten, which is about half way done. **

**So for now, enjoy chapter Eight, which is 1,579 words long.**

_**Chapter Eight**_

The three months between Pepper's announcement in the New York apartment and Tony's return were the farthest from normal Toriana had ever been. She wasn't the type to bury herself in work, or throw away opportunities when they presented themselves, but after Tony's disappearance, she had walked away from the research group she had been working with on the project she couldn't talk about. She refused to go back to Malibu, instead holing herself up in her lab with a mixture of old and new research notes.

Days after Tony had disappeared, after she had told her group she could no longer help with the research, she stumbled once again upon the box of research of her grandfather's. The box had been only three quarters full when she had found it originally, but she had managed to fill the box when she added her own notes from her tests and research. Three months she spent working on the serum, though mostly theoretically, seeing as she had nothing to test it on because she couldn't use her own blood.

One wouldn't think that Toriana could get much done in three months and they would be right, had Toriana been working her regular hours, or not been so focused on the one project. In those few months, Toriana had managed to figure out a great portion of the components for the serum, though there were a lot of variables that she didn't have any ideas about, and create a design for a mechanism to activate the serum, similar to the one Howard speaks of in his notes that was used to activate the serum in the test subject in 1942.

The notes were impeccably detailed in their own vague way. Howard's original notes on the serum, subject and machine weren't in any sort of order, as if he wrote them out after the fact and wrote as he remembered details. The machine was the most described item in the notes. Understandably, given that Howard had designed and built the Vita-Ray emitting device. Even still, the details of the device were interspersed with details about the serums ingredients, the changes seen in the subject and various other things relating to the project.

Toriana spent a good chunk of time just rewriting the notes into manageable sections. By the end of it, she had stacks of note books filled with the rewritten notes, along with her own theories on how to enhance the device, components for the serum, and why everything worked the way it did. The time she spent poring over the notes, the little tests she performed and all the research she did meant that she didn't end up sleeping or eating much during those months.

And so, after three months, the Toriana that greeted Pepper at the door was a good ten pounds lighter and her skin a few shades lighter from lack of sunlight. Pepper herself was also worse for wear when she arrived at the apartment for the second time in three months. Her clothes were wrinkled from sitting in cars and planes for the better part of the day and her make-up was smudged from wiping her hands on her face. The two women stared at each other in the entry way into the penthouse.

"Tori-" Pepper started at the same time Toriana began, "Pepp-" the two both broke off mid word, smiling sheepishly at each other. Toriana waved her hand to signal the elder woman to speak.

"They found him, Toriana." Pepper announced. "Your father is alive and on his way here."

Toriana sagged into herself, her already small frame seeming to shrink. "Where was he? Where _is _he?"

Pepper shook her head and shrugged before tugging the younger woman further into the apartment. The red headed woman led the blonde to the master bedroom where she calmly pulled out an outfit for Toriana. A pair of tailored black dress pants and a loose fitting sheer pink tunic style top were pulled from the large, albeit half empty, closet. A camisole of the same pink tone was pulled free from the chest of drawers along with underthings.

Pepper turned to the blonde girl and took in her appearance with a critical eye. Toriana's hair was messy, knotted and greasy, tied into a rough bun on the back of her head with several strands hanging free, brushing her shoulders and face. Dark circles hung under blue eyes, thick enough to almost pass for black eyes from punches than a sign of lack of sleep. The girls clothes hung wrinkled and slightly twisted on her body, a men's shirt so old that the band name could no longer be read from the shirt, a pair of cut off denim shorts, cut off short enough that the front pockets hung from below the tattered edge of the leg. No socks or shoes accompanied the outfit. Pepper shook her head and pointed to the attached bathroom with one hand while gesturing to the clothing on the bed with the other. "Go clean up, and then put this on. Brush your hair, but I'll style it and do your make-up. Call me when you are done."

The red head then left the room without waiting for a reply. Toriana, however, obeyed without question. Tossing herself into the shower almost before the water had a chance to heat up and rushing through washing her hair and body. After the shower she ran a brush through her hair with the realization that it had been at least three days since she had taken the time to do the task. With a grimace she ran a bit of extra leave-in conditioner through her tresses. After dressing she left the bedroom to find Pepper had set up a miniature beauty counter on the dining table, complete with supplies to do up Toriana's hair.

Pepper stood by the single chair that was pulled away from the table waiting, bobby pins and hair clips at the ready. Toriana slumped into the chair and let the woman work. Pepper told the younger woman what she knew of the situation as she worked Toriana's hair into a neat plait and covered the circles with concealer.

An hour later both woman stood on the tarmac of the airport waiting for the plane carrying Tony to land. Happy and Pepper were watching the plane come in with a professional calm mask on their faces, not letting their relief at their boss' return show through; Toriana had no need to hide her relief. She was nearly vibrating with how bad she was shaking watching that plane come to a stop before them. When the rear hanger doors opened and Cornel Rhodes stood with Tony just beyond them, tears began to roll down not only Toriana's cheeks, but a few streaked Pepper's cheeks. The elder woman dashed away the tears as quickly as they came and took a deep breath as Tony began to walk from the plane.

Tony descended the ramp from the plane, he sent a way the pair of soldiers with a gurney and came to a stop in front of Pepper. "Your eyes are red, a few tears for your long lost boss?"

"Tears of joy," Pepper scoffed lightly. "I hate job hunting."

Tony half nodded at the read head, "Yeah, vacation's over." The dark haired man then makes his way to Toriana who stood quivering halfway between Pepper and Happy, who stood beside the car. Tony didn't say anything at first, simply holding out the arm that wasn't in a sling out to the side, offering a hug. Toriana didn't hesitate to throw herself into her dad's arms, sobbing uncontrollably into the lapel of his suit jacket. Father and daughter stand, clinging to one another for a time neither of them were sure of before they righted themselves. "Hey, Tori." He murmurs softly as he pulls away. "I'm okay, you're okay. Everything is okay."

Toriana releases a watery chuckle. "Dad, you are in a sling, you were kidnapped, you are _not_ okay."

Tony smirked lightly. "Sure I am, kid."

Toriana rolled her eyes and motioned to the car. Pepper was already inside, the door standing open waiting for Tony and Toriana to get in. Happy stood just behind the door, waiting to close it behind the pair. Tony nodded to the driver with a muttered, "Happy," in greeting. The second man smiled crookedly and nodded.

The door closed behind Tony, and as the three buckle into their seats, Happy turns to face them from his place behind the wheel. "Where to?"

"Take us to the hospital please, Happy," Pepper answers only to be contradicted by Tony with a succinct, "no".

"No? You have to go to the hospital, Tony." Pepper tells him, swinging her head around to face the man.

A short argument later that ended with Tony announcing; "I don't have to do anything. I've been in captivity for three months. There are two things I want to do; I want an American cheeseburger, and the other," he paused, only to be interrupted by Pepper's indignant, "That's enough of that."

"Is not what you think. I want you to call for a press conference now."

"Call for a press conference?" Pepper questioned the dark haired man before her.

"Why do you need a press conference, dad?" Toriana added.

Tony didn't answer the women's questions, simply ignoring them completely by speaking with Happy. "Hogan, drive. Cheeseburger first."


	9. Chapter 9

**AN: Go read Chapter Eight.**

**Welcome back, I guess you didn't get the notification for Chapter Eight because I replaced the note with the chapter instead of adding a new one, so you all get Chapter Nine early. That being said, Chapter Ten isn't done, but hopefully sometime today I will get it done and off to my Beta. This chapter is 1,139 words long, so I'm sticking to a pretty average rate right now, of course, Chapter Eight was longer. **

**Either way, enjoy the chapters, and as always, let me know what you think. **

_**Chapter Nine**_

The press conference had been a joke. Who the joke was on was debated in the many media outlets that had sent reporters to the conference. Some were saying that Tony Stark had lost his mind in captivity and was throwing away his company; others said he had seen the proverbial light and was mending his ways. Either way; someone was the butt of the joke: Tony himself, or the people who were relying on Stark Industries for their weapons systems. Toriana snorted as she flipped off the report on the television. To her it was easy to see that Tony had never been one hundred percent sane to begin with, so there really wasn't an argument that he had "lost his mind" in Afghanistan. Or wherever it was that he ended up.

Tony had been home a few weeks now, and was, as Toriana had expected, holed up in his lab. Pepper was in the dining room organizing Tony's life as she did. The scene was far more normal than anyone would say it had right to be. The only thing that didn't truly fit was Toriana's presence in the house when normally she would have been in New York. She had gone back, briefly a few days after Tony's return to pack up some of her stuff, and pack away the research she was working on so that no one could come across it, should they make it past the security and into the penthouse.

From then on she had barely left what was her childhood home. Today she was curled up on the couch with her laptop, doing as much research as she could manage online, using JARVIS when necessary to get through things like firewalls and password protected sites to get the information she wanted.

In the middle of her research, Toriana was vaguely aware of her dad calling Pepper into his lab-meet-garage basement to help him with something, but she didn't even glance up from her screen until the pair emerged from the lab.

"Don't you dare ever ask me to do something like that again!" Pepper nearly screeched.

"What, it wasn't that bad!" Tony argued as he wiped his hand on a rag, following the red headed woman through the living room and into the dining room.

Toriana's eyes followed their movements, her left brow raised curiously.

"It was that bad. It was worse than that bad, Tony." Pepper griped.

"Well, you're all that I have! I mean, I couldn't have asked Tori to do it!" Tony argued back.

Pepper didn't reply right away, and when she did, it was muffled by the wall between the arguing pair and Toriana, so the younger didn't catch what the reply was. Rolling her eyes, she returned to her research, she knew that whatever it was that her dad didn't want to ask her to do, that Pepper thought was worse than "that bad" wasn't something she wanted to be doing anyway.

Another few weeks had passed, Tony holed up in his lab, Pepper going back to doing what Pepper did, and Toriana finally returned home to New York. When Obadiah had need to go to a Board of Directors meeting that was held at the main Stark Building in New York, Toriana went along for the flight before heading off to the penthouse, while Obadiah went to the meeting.

In California, Tony had worked tirelessly on Mark II and had created boots that could create lift, but flight was unstable and nearly uncontrollable. When he decided that he need flight stabilizers, he designed them to fit into the palm of his hands at the end of sleeves to provide extra support, like how he had made flight boots as opposed to flight shoes. Just as he began testing his just finished stabilizer for his right arm, Pepper came into the lab to inform him that Obadiah had returned and was up stairs.

After successfully shooting himself into a wall while blasting another, Tony pulled himself away from his work to go and speak with Obadiah. The talk didn't go all that well, and left Tony rushing back to his lab to avoid the elder man. The next few days he completed a second stabilizer for his left arm and began testing them once again, though this time with much more success and less full force shots into the concrete walls of the lab.

Toriana, in New York, chose not to return to the research team, instead choosing to work solely on the project that had taken over her life during her father's incarceration in Afghanistan. And while Tony was finding success in his flight gear, Toriana was struggling with the Vita-Ray emitter she was attempting to create. She had figured out that the Vita-Ray was a highly powerful combination of various light rays along with a little bit of various types of radiation. Knowing that, it was easier to understand the accidents that had happened in attempts to recreate the serum in the past. A touch too much Gamma, and the world is saying good bye to Doctor Bruce Banner and hello to the Hulk.

Toriana and Tony talked for hours on the phone, about nothing and everything. Each was reluctant to speak too openly about the project they were working on, but truly wanted or needed the other's input to get to the end result they wanted. Tony was brilliant with technology, Toriana was sure that if she gave him Howard's notes and her own, she would have a Vita-Ray Emitter in no time, but she didn't want to have the man build it for her, just give her tips on how not to fry herself or turn herself into a giant green rage monster. And Tony himself wanted Toriana's insight on the more biological part of the Arc reactor in his chest, without letting on to how much it could actually hurt him in the long run.

Through subtle comments and questions, both got much of the information they were looking for; all without letting on to what they were working on as Toriana chose to prefer to be ignorant to whatever harebrained scheme her dad had come up with this time. Each one always seemed more ridiculous and farfetched than the last, and Toriana wasn't going to put herself between her dad and Pepper whenever Pepper inevitably found out. There had been multiple incidents over the years in which Toriana had unwittingly gone along with a plan of Tony's which resulting in the both of them on the receiving end of Pepper's wrath.

Life had seemingly gone back to, at least the Stark equivalent of, normal by the time Tony had been home for two months. Seemingly being the operative word in the previous statement, because looks can be, and are deceiving.


	10. Chapter 10

_**Chapter Ten**_

Seemingly normal was probably the best way to put what was happening in the two Stark homes. Tony spent his time - the time he was supposed to be lying low for while making the Mark II flight suit and testing it constantly - pushing himself and his technology to the absolute limits. This limit being the height he could fly before he was covered in ice that shut down the suit's systems, leaving him to free fall back down to earth.

It was after Tony returned from the test of how high that he overheard a news report about 'Tony Stark's Third Annual Benefit for the Fire Fighters Family Fun at the Disney Concert Hall.' JARVIS confirmed that no invitation to the Benefit had been received while he rendering a composite of what the Mark III would look like when constructed in a gold-titanium alloy when Tony notices the announcement.

"A little ostentatious, don't you think?" Tony remarked when the composite was finished. The design was quite similar to the Mark II, with minor changes to the articulation as well as an upgraded power generation unit. The biggest difference visually from the silver-toned Mark II was the bright gleaming golden shade of the alloy.

"What was I thinking?" The AI replied, "You are usually so discreet."

Tony grunted lowly, turning to get something off of his desk behind him when he spotted one of his many cars sitting just beyond the desk.

"Tell you what; throw a little Hot Rod Red in there."

"Yes, that should help you keep a low profile," The AI remarked before he adjusted the composite to reflect the request.

Tony left JARVIS to assemble the suit automatically, changed into a tailored suit and left the house to crash his own party.

Toriana, herself, was fiddling with various liquids in her lab, attempting to recreate the serum. She had seven different versions by the end of those two months. She had decided that the best course of action was to create various versions -all slightly different - of the serum and begin whittling away from the large, rather than putting all her work into one, and risking something being completely wrong and not being able to break down why it went wrong.

Toriana had also completed a small, very small, working prototype of the Vita-Ray Emitter. While inventing was more her father and grandfather's forté than hers, Toriana managed just fine to build the small Emitter with the notes that Howard left behind. The things she didn't know, research online and in other note books from Howard helped clear up. She didn't expect anything to come of her research; she expected to be stuck with much more trial and error than actual answers to show up.

As Toriana worked, she had feelers out in various research databanks and on different bio-chemistry forums online to, hopefully, sniff out more leads about components for the serum. A few forums were for things like Doctor Banner's research with Gamma Radiation and research done in Stem Cells, hoping that they might hold the key. She hadn't had much luck, but she also wasn't willing to put too much of her own findings out in case someone happened to figure out what she was working on and perhaps further it without contacting her.

The knock on the door was a surprise, especially when JARVIS was overridden and the front door opened before Toriana could make the entry way. The woman who stood in the doorway was tall, brunette, and had a no-nonsense look on her face as she gazed at the penthouses tenant.

"And you are?" Toriana asked mildly, eyeing the woman.

"Agent Maria Hill of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division." The woman answered stepping into the apartment and closing the door behind her. "Miss Stark, we have much to talk about."

At the party, Tony was cornered by a reporter that he had met a long while before. She accused him of lying to the population, with the proof of pictures of Stark weapons in the hands of unidentified people taking over a small town called Gulmira.

Enraged by the sight of the pictures of dead animals and people, of the Jericho Missile he refused to build for the group there anyway, Tony left the party to confront Obadiah on the steps of the building. Tony was left in a state of shock when Obadiah, the man he had known his whole life, was the one to file an injunction to lock him out of his own company; the one to deal under the table with terrorists.

Anger fuelled Tony returned home just long enough to don the newly finished Mark III suit and take off headed towards Afghanistan.

* * *

**AN:**** Hey guys, so sorry about this chapter taking so long to be up. It's only 793 words, so it really shouldn't have taken as long as it did, but I kept trying to boost it to a thousand like the rest of the chapters. Clearly, this didn't work. I've had it back from my Beta for a while, life just got a bit busy after I got it.**

**Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it, lemme know what you think.**

**Chapter Eleven should be done tonight/this morning so hopefully in the next few days you can have it too.**


	11. Chapter 11

_**Chapter Eleven**_

The S.H.I.E.L.D. Base in New York was located underground, beneath two city blocks of Manhattan. The seven floors of the Base were split up between Research and Development Labs, office space, storage space and training space for the newer recruits. Toriana had been led from the Stark Penthouse and into a blacked out car. She was sure it had driven in circles before pulling into an underground parking garage. From the garage, she was shuffled by Agent Hill and four other black-clad agents into a stainless steel lined elevator that carried them down to the second-to-last floor.

Stepping out of the elevator, Maria led Toriana down a long corridor lined with windows and doors that led into labs that were decked out in the best equipment possible for whatever was being worked on in each room. The labs that were passed contained mostly chemical labs, so for as much as there was to be seen, nothing was obvious enough to actually tell what was being worked on in the labs. There were a multitude of people in the rooms, all dressed in what had to be issued outfits of white lab coats and black slacks, while button-ups could be seen poking out of the coats.

Toriana followed the agents silently, barely holding onto her self-control to not roll her eyes at the theatrics, as if catching glimpses of the labs would have an effect on whether she would say yes or no to whatever it was they were going to ask her when they got where they were going. For all Toriana knew, the labs were being faked, and only had people in them for her benefit; how would she really know?

As she walked Toriana, thought of the scene Agent Hill made in the apartment.

_The knock on the door was a surprise, especially when JARVIS was overridden and the front door opened before Toriana could make the entry way. The woman who stood in the doorway was tall, brunette, and had a no-nonsense look on her face as she gazed at the penthouses tenant. _

"_And you are?" Toriana asked mildly, eyeing the woman. _

"_Agent Maria Hill of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division." The woman answered stepping into the apartment and closing the door behind her. "Miss Stark, we have much to talk about."_

_Rolling her eyes at the woman, "Please, do come in." Toriana led the woman into the dining room and gestured for her to sit at the table while taking a seat herself. "And what does the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division want with me?"_

"_We know what you've been working on, Miss Stark." _

"_It's Doctor Meijer, actually, and I haven't a clue what you are talking about, I've not been working on anything since my father went missing." Toriana straightened in her seat, raising her chin defiantly, as if daring the Agent to question her. _

"_I assure you, _Doctor Meijer_ that we at the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division know what you've been working on." The agent's emphasis on her name and title was laced with sarcasm, proving that she didn't truly believe Toriana. Perhaps about her last name, or about her title, either way though, it didn't make a difference. "The Director has a proposition for you; he'd like to meet you." _

_Toriana and Agent Hill spent nearly an hour going back and forth at Toriana's dining table before Agent Hill managed to coerce the girl into meeting with Director Fury at a Base in Manhattan. _

When the group came to a halt in front of a lab door just like every lab door that they had already passed Agent Hill gestured for Toriana to open the door and enter. The younger woman rolled her eyes at the elder and pushed her way into the room.

State of the art equipment was spread out around the room, desks and tables stacked with packages of fresh vials and test tubes. The room was spacious, the large tables surrounded by open walkways. The air smelt of disinfectant and was cool from the air conditioner that was humming quietly in the background.

A man dressed entirely in black, black cargo pants, a black leather jacket that hung down passed his knees, stood against the blank back wall of the laboratory. The man's dark skin was scarred around a leather eye patch that covered his left eye, though smooth everywhere else that was visible. His head was shaved bald but he had a neatly trimmed mustache and goatee.

"Welcome to the _Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division,_ Doctor Stark." The man, clearly Director Fury, announced as soon as the door fell closed behind Agent Hill. "My name is Nick Fury, and I am the Director of this operation. What do you think of our facilities?"

Toriana threw her gaze around the room once more, taking note of the high end logos on the product packaging and equipment. The stainless steel tabletops gleamed in the artificial light. "It's not bad, no better than my lab at home. But my name is Meijer, not Stark. He may have adopted me, but I never changed my name."

Fury nodded his head in acceptance, "Though here you would have access to more than just what you see. There are databases of information and many men at your disposal for help with your experiments."

"And if I prefer to work alone?"

"Then the lab is yours alone."

Toriana turned from the man and walked through the room contemplatively. "And who would have access to my work?" She didn't face him when she asked, busy inspecting one of the many boxes on the table nearest to her.

"You, me, and anyone you deem necessary." The man answered. "Unless you are working on an assignment, in which case the access will be to anyone who is granted authorization." Fury walked closer to Toriana, his single eye focused on her. "You will be given a server to work on while here, encrypted and password protected. With a password of your choice, of course."

"And I can grant access to as much or as little of my research as I choose." Toriana bargained. "Accept that and you have yourself a deal."

"We haven't discussed salary yet." Fury reminded her.

"My father is Tony Stark. I'm not worried about the money." Toriana deadpanned.

"Then welcome to the team, Doctor."

* * *

**AN: Hey all, replaced this chapter, so it's all fixed now. My beta finally got finished with both this and the next chapters, so I'm going to go ahead and upload that one too. **

**1,069 words this chapter, sitting about average, I guess, longer than the last. Blown through Iron Man now, a little bit of intermission and on to Iron Man 2 soon.**


	12. Chapter 12

_**Chapter Twelve**_

Working with S.H.I.E.L.D. came with a contract that was seemingly a mile long and required so many places to be initialed or signed that, by the end, Toriana joked that her hand had gone numb somewhere around the middle. Once she finished signing her life away, she was given access to a private server to store her work and keys to the lab that she first met Director Fury in.

Over the following weeks she made leaps and bounds in her research thanks to the unrestrained access to the information databases that she previously had to skulk around in discreetly. Despite the advances she made, there were so many possibilities and variables that there were still years of work to be done.

Toriana had been working at S.H.I.E.L.D. for two months when the portable JARVIS she had installed on her Stark Phone pulled her out of her work with a news report from a Stark Industries warehouse in California.

The projected screen from the phone glowed blue slightly as it showed footage of the Arc Reactor building, first with the glass shattering and figures visible on the roof and then with the reactor itself exploding. A blue banner ran across the bottom of the screen declaring "Stark Industries Building Explodes After Robotic Prototype Malfunctions."

After a few run-throughs of the footage that was taken the previous night, the report shifted to a news anchor who announced that they were going to go live to a press conference held by Colonel James Rhodes of the U.S. Air Force. Toriana shifted her stance to lean against the table behind her as the anchor continued to speculate on the events at the warehouse and what will be said at the press conference.

When the scene changed for a third time, it came up on Rhodey standing behind a podium looking out over a large crowd of finely dressed men and women, each holding note books, recorders, or cameras.

"You all have received the official statement of what occurred at Stark Industries last night," Rhodes announced to the press. The man glanced between the podium and the crowd, making eye contact with the cameras that dotted the edges of the crowd.

"There have been unconfirmed reports of a robotic prototype malfunctioned and caused damage to the arc reactor." He paused and looked down at his notes closely for a moment. "This is true; fortunately a member of Tony Stark's personal security was able to confine the damage to a small area using another robotic prototype." Rhodes let little emotion into his voice as he went through the speech he wrote earlier that day and waited patiently for Tony to come out and say his piece. "At this time it is confirmed that the malfunctioning unit was destroyed in the blast from the Arc Reactor exploding."

Toriana huffed out a breath and let her head drop back to look at the ceiling above her. _There is no way that dad didn't have anything to do with that. No way._ Shaking herself when the reporters began to talk over each other to try and get their questions answered. Facing the screen she could see Tony walking up the center aisle to the podium where Rhodey still stood. When Tony got to the stage Rhodes clapped his shoulder and told the crowd, "Mr. Stark will be giving a statement, but not taking any questions at this time," before stepping out of the way so that Tony could take his place behind the podium.

"Uh, it's been a while since I've been in front of you, so I figure I'll stick to the cards this time." The aforementioned man half-mumbled to the microphone while pulling a set of blue cue cards from the inside breast pocket of his suit jacket. Tony paused to shuffle the cards slightly while the assembled men and women chuckle.

"There's been speculation that I was involved in the events that occurred on the freeway and the roof top," Tony began.

From near the front of the crowd a woman's hand shot up and was quickly followed by a voice. "I'm sorry, Mr. Stark, but do you honestly expect us to believe that that was a bodyguard in a suit? That conveniently appeared, despite the fact that-"

"I know that it's confusing, one thing to question the official story and another entirely to make wild accusations or insinuate that I am superhero." Tony cut in over the reporter's voice.

"I never said you were a superhero." The woman stated succinctly.

"Didn't you?" Tony asked, surprised, but the reporter just shook her head jauntily back and forth. "Well good, because that would be outlandish and, uh, fantastic." Tony tensed as he looked down at the cards to see what he was supposed to be saying, his body language showing just how uncomfortable he was with the whole thing he was. "I-I'm just not the hero type. Clearly. With this laundry list of character defects, the mistakes I've made, largely public." He stumbled over the beginning of what was clearly still not what was written for him to be saying. Toriana could practically hear Pepper shaking her head and whispering for Tony to _"Just read the cards!"_ from wherever she was off camera.

Colonel Rhodes leaned over to his long time friend and whispered into Tony's ear, clearly telling him to just read the cards and finish. Once he had leaned back out of Tony's personal space, Tony pulled the blue papers up into his light of sight once again and seemed to start with what was written finally, "The truth is-" but his voice trailed off before finishing the sentence. The dark haired man stared hard at the cards for a moment he looked over the crowd and cameras before stating exactly what the cards didn't have written on them: "I am Iron Man."

The reporters immediately leapt out of their seats and surged towards the stage shouting question after question at the billionaire.

Toriana watched as the Colonel tensed and grabbed Tony by his shoulders to haul him out of the large room and away from the prying eyes of the cameras. Smirking to herself lightly, Toriana felt smug that she had called the lie, as obvious as it was. All that she really wanted to know now was what – who – exactly Tony was fighting on the roof last night.

* * *

**AN: Howdie, new chapter, if you got a notification about the last, but you already read Chapter Eleven, it was just because I got the chapter back from my beta, and figured I would put up the edited version. This chapter is 1,068 words long, so on par for the last one, but a touch below average. **

**This chapter ends right as Iron Man does, so the next chapter at least is going to be filler between IM1 and IM2, then we will be full force into IM2 before a brief touch on Thor, mentions of Captain America before rounding out with The Avengers. If I had to guess how many chapters, I'd say at least five or six for IM2, one or two for Thor, more for CA, though that isn't to do with the movie itself, but actually finding/reviving Steve, and then probably ten plus for The Avengers. Don't quote me on this, I honestly have no idea how long it will really be, this is just a rough estimate. **


	13. Chapter 13

_**Chapter Thirteen**_

A flight from LaGuardia to LAX wasn't hard to come by, so within a short few hours Toriana found herself on a plane at thirty thousand feet. The five and a half hour flight wasn't the most entertaining thing, but Toriana passed the time listening to music and playing solitaire on her phone, all the while trying to figure out possible explanations for what happened with her dad on that roof top, there was no way it was anything like what the press conference said, even with it being Tony himself on the roof rather than a body guard.

Lost in her own thoughts the flight passed quickly and before Toriana realized what was happening a flight attendant was tapping her on the shoulder to inform her that they'd be landing in a few minutes and asking if she could kindly return her seat to an upright position and lock her tray table up. With a bright smile at the attendant Toriana did as asked and stowed her phone away in her carry-on bag before settling into her seat to await the landing.

The airport, while busy wasn't nearly as difficult to navigate as it could have been, so it didn't take Toriana long to locate her bags and acquire a car to take her to the beachfront home. The house looked mostly the same, there was a stack of concrete rubble off to one side of the garage door that Toriana couldn't place the colour of, but she chose to ignore it while she hauled her suitcase into the entry way of her childhood home.

"Dad! Are you here?" She hollered through the house.

"Your father is in his workshop, Miss Stark." JARVIS's synthetic English accented voice filled the room.

"Thank you JARVIS. Please inform him I am here and that dinner will be in an hour." Toriana told the AI as she settled her bags down beside the stairs. Heading into the kitchen as JARVIS confirmed that he had told Tony about the dinner plans. The kitchen, while stocked well with basics like canned goods and dry ingredients, was woefully under stocked on fresh items like fruits, vegetables and milk. Rolling her eyes at her father's negligence, she had JARVIS keep a list of items that should have been in the house but weren't while she pulled out the fixings for an easy pasta dish.

Dinner was made quickly, and a rather sheepish looking Tony, grease-stained, scraped and bruised, joined Toriana in the kitchen. "Hey, Tor."

"Hi, dad." Toriana responded while handing the man a plate of bowtie alfredo. "So, shall we eat then talk, or talk while we eat?"

Tony gave the young woman a dirty look. "I don't have to tell you anything, you know."

"I could ask JARVIS, or hack your personal server, but that would be a bit extreme for a 'robotic prototype malfunction', wouldn't you think?"

Tony snorted, "I never should have taught you that."

"Please, I would have taught myself anyway." Toriana laughed. "You showing me only meant that there were no arrests along the way."

Tony laughed brightly, "You always were one to act first, think later."

"Like you are one to talk!" Toriana pointed out.

Tony shrugged unrepentantly and agreed. "Yes, but this is a matter of do as I say, not as I do."

"Well that's no fun." Toriana responded. "Now stop deflecting and tell me what is going on."

Tony sighed again and took a bite of pasta to delay the inevitable just that little bit longer. "You know about my reactor," Tony started. "I had the idea for a flight suit, so I built one. Then I heard that someone in Stark Industries was dealing under the table with the terrorists that held me captive. So I went and took out their stash." Once tony began speaking, the story of how he had discovered Obadiah's deceit and how Obadiah had left him for dead in the living room after paralyzing him with his own invention and taking the Arc Reactor from his chest.

He spoke of crawling his way down stairs to try and get the original reactor that Pepper had had put into a display box and failing even after Dum-E took the case from the desk and handed it to him. He told her about how Rhodey had come and saved him by putting the reactor in.

By this time they had abandoned their dinner and relocated to the living room, each curled up on the couch. Toriana and Tony had started curled on either end facing each other, but as Tony spoke Toriana slowly crept forwards until she was curled into Tony's chest as he had often held her as a child.

Tony clung to his daughter as he told her about going to the Arc Reactor Warehouse and finding that Pepper was there with a group of Agents and knowing that they wouldn't be enough to stop Obadiah if he didn't get there in time. He spoke of the flight chase and leading Obadiah's crude version of his suit higher and higher until it froze and shut down.

Toriana wrapped herself around Tony as tight as she could without cutting off blood flow or oxygen when Tony told her of the fight on the roof, of Obadiah shooting at him and him ordering Pepper to overload the reactor. Tony didn't have to tell her that flipping the switches would overload the Reactor, she had spent enough time around the company to know at least something about everything that they were working on at any given time. He also didn't have to tell her that Tony was willing to sacrifice himself in an explosion to stop Obadiah from escaping from there with the weapon he had created.

Tears streamed down Toriana's face and prickled at Tony's eyes when he told her how relieved he was that the suit had protected him from the blast while Obadiah had fallen into the reactor and caused the whole thing to blow. The two sat in silence when Tony was finished with his story. Neither had words to explain their thoughts or feelings on the events that had happened, though neither thought words were necessary in that moment as they held each other.

**AN: Un-beta-ed again, but my beta seems to be MIA, I haven't talked to him in a while, so I think I'll be looking for a new one soon. If you are offering, lemme know!**

**1,045 words, so about on par for the story, perhaps a bit short. Just filler though, so I can't really say I am surprised. Next chapter is a lead up chapter to IM2 and then hopefully we will be into the movie after that. Still not sure how many chapters that will be, but I do know and have planned two chapters for Thor. **

**I doubt anyone ever even bothered with the twitter thing, I didn't. Didn't work, I tried, I swear, but it didn't work. However, I am on Tumblr constantly, so if you want to get in touch with me quickly, and kick me in the butt to get in gear for the next chapter, lemme know at Take out the spaces and brackets, obviously. Do links work on here now? I dunno. **

**Either way, I'll be there, posting about me, stories, likes, pets, what-have-you so drop me a line. I will say it's not the best blog, but I'm new at it.**


	14. Chapter 14

_**Chapter Fourteen**_

A month and a half passed before Toriana forced herself to go back to New York. She had received phone calls from Agent Hill and Director Fury over the last week and knew that soon enough they would stop being kind about it. While Toriana had never been explicitly told that Tony couldn't know she worked for S.H.E.I.L.D., they had made it pretty clear that he shouldn't if it could be avoided. Case in point was that even though she knew Agent Phil Coulson, he never acknowledged her presence the few times they had run into each other while he was trying to get a meeting with Tony in.

The first year after the fight with Obadiah, who the media had been told was killed in a plane crash just off the coast of China, Tony and Toriana's lives went on much as they always had. Tony continued to remove the production of weaponry while steadily making plans for armor and shields for the military instead, along with tracking systems and software. Stark Industries funds began going into medical research and peace keeping missions around the world. Toriana diligently worked at the serum, though she had more written into the column of "not possible components" than what could possibly be in it.

After months of no new breakthroughs or epiphanies regarding the serum Toriana began delving into the research of other scientists to see what they had already done and eliminated as possibilities. She knew right off the bat that the Gamma radiation that Doctor Banner had used was not correct, but she could see why it had been considered. She admitted that had she not had Howard's notes on the Vita-Ray emitter she would have likely started with Gamma radiation herself. Getting her hands on Doctor Banner's notes would go a long way, but even S.H.E.I.L.D. couldn't do everything.

Tony and Toriana continued to regularly call and check in with each other, but rarely did they stray onto the topic of work. On the few occasions that they did, Tony would blabber on about whatever armor he was developing or the latest updates he'd made to JARVIS. While Toriana would talk about the annoying red tape keeping her from research she'd been trying to access, without letting slip what research she was trying to access, or about whatever small project S.H.E.I.L.D. had come up with for her to do.

It was a year and a half after the incident with Obadiah that found Toriana sitting on a wrought iron chair outside of a small café near the entrance to the S.H.E.I.L.D. Base when she saw an article in the New York Times that caught her attention. At first she had played off the picture of her father on the page as something to do with the company because of the change in production, but on a second glance she read the title. Tony Stark: Losing His Cool After Nearly Destroying Stark Industries? Rising from her seat she dropped money on her table for the meal she'd been eating and quickly left to find a copy of the newspaper for herself.

The article turned out to be about Tony's recent stint in Las Vegas casinos and the public intoxication arrests that went with it; a thousand words detailing all the scandalous events around Tony's weeklong visit to the city of sin. After reading the article Toriana tore through the city to return to her apartment and immediately sent JARVIS hunting for any articles like the one she had just read from the last year.

There were small articles from London and Paris about extravagant parties Tony threw at local night clubs, but neither article mentioned anything other than the regular for Tony's last minute parties. Neither party made the news outside of the city they happened in. There were also articles about the Iron Man showing up in newspapers around the world for deeds done, small and large.

Relaxing a bit after her search, Toriana concluded that Tony had simply had a large let loose in Vegas and it was a onetime deal. She didn't feel the need to call Tony on his party, she was his daughter, not his mother, but even still, she left JARVIS with instructions to keep an eye on what was being said about Tony in newspapers around the world.

Three more months passed, now twenty one months after the fight at Stark Industries JARVIS interrupted her while she was working on a new possible combination for the serum based off of another scientist's work and the knowledge she'd gained on the subject over the years.

"Miss Meijer, I have compiled a list of articles regarding Mr. Stark as you asked." The Artificial Intelligence's voice sounded from the tablet she was recording her data on.

"And what of it?" Toriana asked, only half listening as she continued her calculations.

"I believe you will wish to read them." JARVIS commented.

"Very well," Toriana conceded and made quick work of saving what she'd already finished and opening a new folder that appeared on her desktop labeled "Requested Articles". Inside the folder were more than a dozen individual files each labeled by a date beginning nine months after the Stark industries fight.

The first five were before the articles from London and Paris that Toriana found; two from Malibu, one from Reno, as well as two from Toronto Ontario. Each was the same M.O. as the London and Paris articles, large last minute parties at local clubs and restaurants that resulted in Tony spending far too much money, but nothing truly out of the ordinary for the man in question. Then JARVIS had copies of both the London and Paris articles. Dated between Paris and Tony's Vegas week was an article from a small paper in Belgium detailing a large party that went beyond what was normal as several guests were arrested for public intoxication and nudity as well as possession of various drugs.

Tony's Vegas week was nearly two weeks after the Belgium party and after it there was nearly a month of inactivity for Tony in the papers. JARVIS informed Toriana that Tony had spent much of the month long absence holed up in his lab at the Malibu house working on a project that Tony hadn't given Toriana clearance to access. Scowling at this news she continued through the articles.

Each consecutive article detailed more out of control nights. Tony himself had been arrested for public intoxication twice, belligerent behaviour three times, and had been detained over night for a week's worth of nights over the last month and a half. Finishing the final article Toriana disregarded Tony's security protocols on his latest projects and began sifting through notes for the Iron Man suits, ideas for various Stark Industries projects, and paperwork for Stark Industries and found a coded file hidden within a protected file on the Iron Man suits about Palladium poisoning.

* * *

**AN: Alright, so this chapter ended up being two days later than I wanted it to be up, for no other reason than I got caught up in Star Trek. My inner Trekkie escaped and I've been watching TOS. Kinda cheesy, but still good. Anywho, this chapter is 1,158 words long average, yada yada. Also, next chapter, IM2 begins. Excitement from your's truly, as much as you are. **

**On a side note, I screwed up with the timeline in consideration to the Hulk. I had everything else placed, but screwed that up, so let's just pretend that The Incredible Hulk happened before IM1, just to be safe. Yeah? Sound good? Sounds good. **

**Reviews are like air, I need them to live. **


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